Our country is in the midst of a clash between two competing moral visions, between those who believe in the common good, and those who believe individual good is the only good. It's time our leaders in Washington listen to someone other then themselves.

I know baseball well enough to teach and coach the kids, but the skills have never been my strength as a coach. Rather, I bring the qualities from the rest of my life as a speaker, preacher, and pastor to my Little League team.

The president has announced that after an initial drawdown in Afghanistan, the remaining troops will be withdrawn "at a steady pace" going into 2014. But that's not good enough. President Obama had an opportunity to pivot his policy on the war and he didn't take it.

There is a policy myth is that churches and charities alone could take care of the problems of poverty -- especially if we slashed taxes. But this really has more to do with libertarian political ideology than good theology.

The small percentage of Americans who have borne the brunt of the human costs of our Afghan war, the utter corruption of the government we are supporting, and the toll in civilian casualties all make the continuing of this war immoral.

The speech Barack Obama gave in Tucson was a memorial to the victims of a horrible tragedy, but the spirit of his speech could also shape Tuesday's State of the Union address by calling us to be worthy of each victim's sacrifice.

Obama has again bent to the economic philosophy that rewards the casino gamblers on Wall Street and leaves the majority of the country standing outside the casino with a tin cup -- hoping that the gamblers are at least big tippers.

Neither the left nor the right has the answers to our most pressing problems, though each will continue to say that it does. So we have to focus on the spiritual and moral values that bring us together.

This week, a group of more than 130 former legislators, both Republicans and Democrats, released a letter urging for civility and encouraging candidates, once elected, to focus on cooperation to face our country's greatest challenges.

The president asked the nation to "turn the page" last night. But what makes me so sad this morning is the enormous human cost of the war in Iraq; and how a massive number of people and families -- in America and Iraq -- have had their lives ended or changed forever because of this war and will have a hard time turning the page. So was the war in Iraq worth the enormous human cost?

At the heart of the Christian tradition lies the belief that transformation requires sacrifice. Deep and abiding change is hard. But the BP leak is only the latest sign that our society must do exactly that.

Bank bonuses are merely a symptom of a deeper erosion of societal values and the new maxims that have overtaken us: Greed is Good and It's All About Me. Those values wreak havoc on economies, cultures, families, and our very souls.